Charleston, South Carolina


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	Charleston First

Charleston First

1670	The first settlers brought cotton seed to Carolina.

1690	Rice was first exported and expanded within a decade to a volume for which “there were not enough ships in the harbor,” as noted by the Collector of Customs.

1707-28	The first American Woman artist, Henrietta Johnson, painted pastel portraits of the colony’s leading citizens, among them one of Colonel William Rhett, who in 1718 had captured notorious pirate Stede Bonnet.

1734	The first Native American to receive a medical degree, from Leyden University in Holland, was Carolina’s William Bull.

1735	The first American performance of an opera, Flora or Hob in the Well, took place in Charleston.

1736	The Dock Street Theatre, the first American building exclusively for theatrical productions, was contructed.

1736	Charleston was first, in 1736, to organize a fire insurance company, the “Friendly Society for the Mutual Insurance of Houses Against Fire.”

1737	Dr. John Lining, a friend of Benjamin Franklin, conducted this country's first recorded scientific weather observations from his home at Broad and King Streets.

1748	The first cotton was exported from Charleston Harbor, and Sea Island cotton remained world famous until World War I and the tragedy of the boll weevil plague.

1748	The South's oldest library, the Charleston Library Society, now at 164 King Street, came into existence.

1773	The Charleston Chamber of Commerce, the country’s oldest, was founded.

1773	The Charleston Museum was established and became the first public museum in America.

1775	South Carolina’s first naval engagement of the Revolution was fought off Charleston Harbor.

1780	Charlestonian Henry Laurens, president of the Continental Congress, while en route to Holland to raise funds for the American cause, was captured by the British and became the first American patriot to be imprisoned in the Tower of London.

1785	America’s first municipal college, the College of Charleston, was founded.

1786	The first golf club in America was founded in Charleston. Its site on Harleston Green has since been built over, a part of today’s Harleston Village.

1824	Reform Judaism came to this country at K.K. Beth Elohim Synagogue on Hasell Street.

1827	America’s first Fireproof Building was completed.

1830	The world’s longest railroad line was built between Charleston and Hamburg, SC.

1864	The world’s first successful submarine attack took place in Charleston Harbor. Both the H. L. Hunley and its target, the Union warship “Housatonic,” were sunk.

1889	Tea was first successfully established. Even today it is grown on Wadmalaw Island and distributed under the name of American Classic Tea Company.

	America’s first woman pirate was Anne Bonny, a Charleston belle.

	America’s first camellias were planted at Middleton Place, the oldest formally landscaped gardens in this country.